


blood-iron

by merry_wanderer



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Internal Monologue, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 19:27:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merry_wanderer/pseuds/merry_wanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>q likes running, poetry, numbers, and thinking too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blood-iron

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Q I have created in my mind. I may take him other places - we shall have to see. I quite like him, so it's looking pretty likely that this'll go somewhere. Originally posted on tumblr, but I wanted somewhere better to put my writings, somewhere a bit more anonymous. There are no secrets on tumblr.

his older sister is a gp in surrey and she has won awards for her compassion. he thinks on this as he runs, lollops over the heath at night, with the taste of blood-iron in the back of his throat, and he grins and spits and thinks of the running vest she bought him when he won his first race at cambridge. his sister got all of the kindness in the family. he got her share of tenacity. he keeps going. he still has the vest.

he knows shakespearean soliloquies off by heart and he recites these in his head sometimes when he’s on the end of the line, when bond’s pressed down to the wire, and his heart is thrumming in his chest like a hummingbird. bullets pop over the static and he can taste the blood-iron again. he swallows, and snipes at bond through the headset, but his shots always miss their mark (as so often happens with bond, with james).

he sits in the semi-dark at night, at home, and the radio hums lightly in the background, radio 4, a hangover from childhood. he is eight years old and sitting at the table in the kitchen doing chimney sums as his father washes dishes. it is snowing outside and his feet are cold in his socks, one still wet from where melt water got inside his welly on the walk home. now he is twenty eight and sitting on the sofa in his flat, drinking tea in the dim lamplight and writing lines of code like poetry, as rainy fog curls around london like a blanket. his sock is threadbare at the heel and there are dishes in his sink, unwashed.

he hasn’t seen his sister in years. she has two children and he is an uncle, in theory, but he doesn’t know their names. he thinks they have a dog. he imagines what it would be like, picture perfect. he wonders if the children sit in the evening and do maths at the kitchen table, and he wonders if they ever ask about him. or do they even know? the blood-iron is back, and he swallows, and he swallows. he dons his vest and goes out for a run in the rain as the clock strikes eleven. the taste is still there when he gets home.


End file.
